


Where There's Smoke

by spacejargon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 16:04:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14476242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacejargon/pseuds/spacejargon
Summary: Castiel learns about the finer details of why Dean drinks something as sour and bitter as whiskey.





	Where There's Smoke

He likes to watch when Castiel’s expression twists when he tastes whiskey on Dean’s breath. His eyes scrunch up like his nose, wrinkling at the soured, bitter taste. He twitches, though not in disgust but trying to understand why Dean would drink something that burns the human throat the way it does.

There’s still a lot to learn.

Castiel’s tongue licks Dean’s lower lip and he swallows, pulling back. “It tastes like smoke.” His eyes wander to the glass that’s been refilled a few times, narrowing with conclusions being made. “Its composition is not the same as wood smoke, but the effect is similar.”

Dean laughs as he catches a wrist and ensnares the fingers belonging to it. “It’s not supposed to taste sweet. It’s supposed to burn ‘cause it’s alcohol.”

Castiel stares at him suspiciously. “Then you drink it simply for the pleasure of intoxication.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Dean’s other hand crawls back to his glass, the ice long melted on his tongue. “Gets you plenty drunk if you drink too much. But it takes the edge off if you don’t overdo it.” He makes an example of this, holding the glass to his lips and tipping it back.

Blue eyes burn into him, watching the slide of amber and the hiss of liquid smoke hitting Dean’s tongue. Dean reaches up to him, angling his neck like he’s fishing for a kiss. Castiel obliges without further hesitation, though he does consider it in the moments before he presses his lips to Dean’s and the burn spreads.

When Dean swallows, Castiel chases his breath by pressing through the seam of his mouth. Somehow in the collision of teeth and tongues Castiel ends up straddling Dean’s lap, tasting the burn of smoke and fossilized amber in what can be explained as purely exploratory.

After another slowed play of following and leading by the lips, Castiel pulls back, lines creasing in his forehead where he contemplates some more. “Human history is filled with instances of drinking for spiritual and physical reasons. Most often, for the pleasure of not existing mentally within the present.” His voice drops when he meets Dean’s eyes, soft but analytical. “Escapism is a common theme within alcoholism.”

A low chuckle rumbles out of Dean’s throat, rubbing it raw. “Ouch, Cas. Calling me an alcoholic?”

Castiel tilts his head to the side, his eyes narrowing. “No, I simply meant the most common reason for drinking is to escape. Pleasure is derived from the act of not having the inhibition to react to one’s surrounding environment.”

Castiel’s fingers brush against Dean’s cheek and down his jaw. Dean takes them, keeping them there with a hand over Castiel’s. He rolls his shoulders back, his spine popping as he straightens. “Why do you drink?”

“Thought you’d already have the answer for that,” Dean side-eyes his glass. Maybe…

“I do. Well, I have many possible answers based on my observations of you.”

“And?”

“And,” Castiel breathes through his nose in a sound akin to a huff, as if irked by having to repeat himself. “You drink as a form of stress relief, from what I understand. Given you and your brother’s current lifestyle, psychological stress is unavoidable. You no longer drink for purely physical reasons.”

Dean’s eyes glint with a hint of mischief Castiel isn’t as quick to notice when it appears. “Close, but not quite. Maybe most of the time, but not right now.” He keeps eye contact with Castiel all throughout reaching for his glass and tipping it back, draining the rest of it in a single swallow. When his throat numbs after the initial burn, he speaks. “There’s another reason.”

His curiosity is tangible, forcing the cogs that work in Castiel’s mind to grind as they work out what Dean means. For being a supposedly observational angel, he hasn’t noticed yet. Well, Dean doesn’t put it past him—the way Castiel works won’t immediately lead him to the conclusions Dean can jump to.

Castiel’s lips part, his tongue moving from where it was pinched between his teeth—something he does when he’s thinking. “What is it, then?” His eyes are full of intent, patience setting in his features like stone. “What have I missed?”

The line comes up faster than a hangover on a Saturday morning and it’s so cheesy even Sam would cringe. It rides a fevered belch of words, tasting sour and burning with stomach acid. “The first time you kissed me, I was drinking whiskey.” With a nod, he motions to the bottle across the table where Castiel had once glanced at it, paying it little attention before. “You taste like smoke, Cas.”

And a whole bunch of other things that he’d mention if he was that much of a sap, but he’s not Sam. Castiel’s eyes light up with the new solution and his eyes move like he’s processing it behind the scenes, realizing what he’s missed when a heat ignites behind them, bringing him back to Dean with a surprised, almost scandalous look.

“Then you drink fire,” Castiel’s eyes flit to the empty whiskey glass, “to catch the taste of smoke?”

Dean laughs again and shakes his head, disbelief filling him. “You’re as much of a sap as Sam is. Is he letting you read his romance novels again? Someone’s gotta stop him.”

Castiel scowls and mutters about how the finer details of art forms Dean doesn’t care for are still as important, whether or not he does concern himself with them. But then he leans in close, his lips ghosting over the shell of Dean’s ear and close enough that if Dean turns his head, they’d be kissing.

“As I recall, the more intoxicated you become, the more likely you are to wax poetic. Your narratives are often intriguing when you are not completely intoxicated.”

“Watch it,” Dean slides until he’s got Castiel by the lips and he doesn’t let go, feeling fingers thread into his hair and the distinct touch of insistence sliding into a dried kiss. Castiel’s trench coat falls off his shoulders and onto Dean’s knees, quickly forgotten when the only focus is the fact the whiskey bottle is almost empty but not there yet. Castiel is quickly winning his argument on where Dean’s fingers should roam to.

Not long after, the taste for whiskey is an abandoned endeavor.

**Author's Note:**

> ...there's fire.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
